“Yes! She is, Mr. Strang,” Deborah agreed. “I would own it as a Cavendish trait but I do believe she is more like you than she was ever like my cousin Emily. Although, in form she is her mother’s daughter and I will own her pretty strawberry coloring to the Cavendish pedigree. She could make a great match if she so desired but...” She tilted her head to look at him. “I sense that is not your ambition for her...?”
“What I wish for Sarah-Jane, your Grace, is for her to marry a man who is deserving of her. A marriage of mind and soul, not title and tether. What is the point of her being Lady Nose-in-the-Air if she is miserable and wretched? I don’t want her forever leg-shackled to a spineless sot who is a brute and beats her when he is drunk, or for any reason, because he can, but who can call himself Lord God Almighty because he had ancestors who bowed and scraped and went on crusades for their king. That was the sort of marriage her mother was forced to endure before her lousy lord did her and I a favor and died of a heart seizure in the arms of a whore.” When the Duchess remained silent, he shrugged and looked sheepish. “You did ask for plain speech, your Grace.”
“I did and I do not disagree with you. But... Sarah-Jane, for all her good sense, is not immune to title, particularly when that title is owned by a devilishly handsome man, Mr. Strang.”
“You refer to Alisdair Fitzstuart.” Jonathon stared straight ahead, down the long deserted avenue, children, minders and gardeners nowhere in sight, to the old high stone wall and the doorway he had used seven days ago to access the boatshed. Seven days that seemed a lifetime ago now. “I have it on excellent authority he is exceedingly handsome. He flutters the hearts of all women, be they widows, married or unmarried, pretty or no. The man, it seems, is a walking Adonis.”
Deborah heard the edge to his voice and did not believe his irritation with Dair Fitzstuart was solely caused by his daughter’s interest in her husband’s cousin. She may have been caught up in playing hostess while she had guests at Treat, but she like others had not been blind to Jonathon’s particular attentions to her mother-in-law. And there was the inevitable gossip that trickled back to her of his uninvited visit to Crecy Hall.
But unlike the Duke, who regarded the East India merchant’s behavior toward his mother as predatory and self-serving, Deborah was able to be more dispassionate and, being romantically minded for all her practicality, she was not adverse to opening the door to another possibility for Jonathon’s assiduous attentions; one she had not dared to breathe to the Duke for fear he would think her pregnancy had brought on brain fever, because, as a son, he was blind to all possibilities where his mother was concerned. Despite the fifth Duchess being breathtakingly beautiful to everyone with a pair of seeing eyes, the Duke was her son and what child saw their mother in any other role but as a mother? Any thought the fifth Duchess was an attractive female and the object of many a man’s lust was naturally dismissed as repugnant and not given a second thought.
Deborah decided to test her intuition.
“You do not approve of Dair Fitzstuart as a fit husband for Sarah-Jane?” she asked lightly.
“I do not.”
“Then, pardon my presumption, but as a concerned father, should you be with Sarah-Jane now in Buckinghamshire to ensure she does not accept a proposal of marriage from a man you do not want to see her—as you put it—titled but miserably leg-shackled for the rest of her life?”
It was Jonathon’s turn to stop on the path. He turned to the Duchess, who looked up at him with her customary enigmatic smile, and met her open gaze squarely and without a smile.
“Sarah-Jane departed Buckinghamshire yesterday and is en-route to London with Kitty and Tommy. Her letter informing me of her journey was redirected here. It seems she knows me better than I gave her credit! I can only hope that whatever decision she has made for her future it was taken with careful deliberation and consideration and that the nineteen years she spent with me has had some bearing on her choices.”
“I suppose it would be too much for you to expect that she would write her decision in a letter,” Deborah stated. “She would want to tell you, her father, to your face.”
Jonathon gave a huff of laughter. “Yes. She tells me that delight awaits me upon my return to Hanover Square. I confess each mile closer to London will test my resolve in my upmost confidence in Sarah-Jane’s ability to be discerning.”
Deborah bit her lower lip in thought. “I am sure that whatever her decision, she has made it without being overly influenced by Kitty and Tommy.”
“Thank you for your candor about your cousins, your Grace,” Jonathon replied with a lop-sided grin. “You and I both know that those two would have her married off to a rake twice her age and with one foot in the grave, if it meant she was to become a duchess! If that isn’t appalling enough, society would not lift one fine eyebrow to such a circumstance. Indeed many would applaud her good fortune.”
“But if she was in love... You would not stop her marrying such a man, surely?”
“No. Not if he reformed himself for her,” Jonathon replied quietly. “It does not mean that such a match would make me happy; it would not. I cannot conceive why a man of my years would want to marry a chit from the schoolroom. To be brutally frank,” he added, “the very idea fills me with repugnance.”
“As we are being brutally frank with one another, I would expect nothing less of you, Mr. Strang, and applaud your feelings. I admit that before I met my parents-in-law, I was skeptical that such an uneven match in age could be a success. And when I met my father-in-law...” She gave an involuntary shudder. “You must believe me when I tell you he could send chills down my spine with one look. No one, and I truly do mean no one, ever crossed him; right up until the end. Even my husband, who for the last two years of M’sieur le Duc’s life was Duke in all but name, concerned himself unnecessarily that the decisions he made on his father’s behalf were what M’sieur le Duc would want and approve.” Impulsively, Deborah placed a hand on his sleeve. “That is between you and me and no other, Mr. Strang.”
He covered her hand briefly and then made her a short bow. “Naturally, your Grace.”
She nodded and would have turned to continue down the path to the garden wall door but for a sudden memory that made her pause and give an involuntary shudder. “Mr. Strang, we all lived in M’sieur le Duc’s shadow until the final breath left his body.”
“Except her.”
Deborah regarded him with surprise.
“Yes. Yes, you are right. Except her. M’sieur le Duc was utterly devoted to Maman-Duchess.” She blinked up at Jonathon, revelation opening wide her damp brown eyes. “Do you know, I do believe Maman-Duchess was oblivious to that ominous shadow? She had no idea of its existence.”
“Why would she when she was the ray of sunshine in his life? Now, who have we here?” he said in a loud welcoming voice, stepping past her and going down on his haunches to welcome the twins who were running up the path to greet him. “Fearless Pirate Gus and his fellow salty sea-faring pirate Louis! Oh! And a beautiful damsel in distress?”
Deborah was so startled by his acute observation that words failed her. It was not only what he had said; it was the way in which he had said it, as if it was self-evident and indisputable. My God, she thought, turning to greet her children with a bright smile, the situation is far more problematical than I ever imagined. He’s fallen in love with her.
Trailing behind the twins, their little sister tried desperately to keep up but failed miserably because she did not want to fall into the crushed stone and muddy her pretty lemon-yellow silk petticoats and matching pantaloons and because she was only three years old and her little legs were no match for the sturdy strides of a pair of five-year olds. She was about to burst into tears of frustration when Jonathon gently off-loaded the boys, who were scampering all over him in exuberant greeting, and in two strides scooped up the Lady Juliana to raise her high in the air, which she found frightening and exhilarating in equal measure and when he set her o
n his shoulders to look down at her brothers from up on high she giggled her delight and waved to them in triumph.
With the Lady Juliana on his shoulders and the twins holding hands and talking non-stop, Jonathon and the Duchess exited the Elizabethan rose garden through the stone walled door to enter a field covered in wildflowers. A small contingent of nursery maids and footmen laden with various articles necessary for a successful picnic, followed. Sheep grazed on the far side of the ha-ha and along the path that led to the sizeable boat shed on the shores of the lake. And to the left, a copse, where the floor of ancient fallen leaves and bracken was covered in a purple-blue-green haze litter of bluebells, newly emergent since Jonathon had passed by the previous week.
The twins let go of each other’s hands and led the way, running on ahead through the bluebells, nets trailing behind them, to where there was a small clearing and it was here the small contingent of footmen spread out blankets and set down wicker baskets laden with an afternoon tea of cakes, biscuits, fruit, cordial for the children, porcelain plates and cups and a silver tea urn with its very own elaborate silver stand and oil burner to keep the tea warm.
Nursery maids went about feeding the children, ravenous after their play, and footmen waited on the Duchess and Jonathon who took tea and sat side by side on a fallen log fashioned into a makeshift bench, a thick wool blanket draped across the smooth bark log to save her Grace’s embroidered petticoats, and watched her children joyously munching on orange cake and almond biscuits.
“Where’s my rowing companion this fine day, your Grace?” Jonathon asked, sipping at his tea politely, though he found the English way of serving their tea insipid after the spicy Chai tea of the subcontinent. “Surely you have not compelled him to work at his Latin while his brothers enjoy the fresh air and sunshine?”
“Fredrick went with his father to Bath for a short stay with Roxton’s godfather.”
“Been gone long?” Jonathon asked, hoping his tone was light.
“I sent them away the morning after the regatta. I am expecting them home any day.”
Jonathon picked up on Deborah’s use of the phrase I sent them away and framed his next sentence carefully. He had now read Tommy’s letter, left for him while he was away in London, and it gave a vivid, if somewhat unsurprising culinary metaphor-laced, account of the traumatic events of the evening after the regatta. And while Tommy had not been party to what had transpired in the library between mother and son, he was able to tell Jonathon that it was a very heated exchange witnessed by the Duchess and overheard by Frederick. According to Tommy, everyone had witnessed the Dowager Duchess’s very public breakdown in the Gallery and that it was more than ten minutes before anyone realized she had not returned indoors but had walked off into the night. Several gentlemen led by Charles Fitzstuart had rushed out into the pitch-blackness with tapers to discover her walking toward the lake and stopped her before she drowned herself. Tommy had used words such as unsurprising, inevitable and suicidal, all of which Jonathon rejected. Antonia had promised Monseigneur to give Frederick the ducal emerald ring on his twenty-first birthday and that was a promise she would keep with every fiber of her being, however low and disordered her spirits; of that he was convinced.
He was somewhat mollified to learn that the Duke had not been sitting in his palace while on the other side of the lake a lunatic physician had been molesting his mother. Still, that did not negate the Duke’s neglect, or his behavior, and so Jonathon intended to tell him when next they met.
“How wise of you to send them away, your Grace,” Jonathon commented, replacing the patterned porcelain cup on its saucer. “A few days solely in each other’s company will allow the Duke to regain perspective and Frederick to recover from what must have been an exceedingly traumatic ordeal for a little boy not quite seven years of age.”
“As you know what occurred in the library—”
“Pardon, your Grace, I know there was an incident in the library,” Jonathon interrupted, hearing her disapproval, “but not what occurred or what was said. What I do know about is the aftermath, not because Mme la duchesse confided in me, but because it is on the public record. I have Tommy to thank for the account of the drama that unfolded after she left the library. That is all.”
There was a prolonged silence. Had there been crickets, Jonathon would have heard them. And then Deborah Roxton spoke, voice steady, but Jonathon heard the slight tremor and appreciated her internal struggle to take him into her confidence about an episode that clearly still distressed her.
“I love my husband very much, Mr. Strang. But it has not blinded me to his few foibles, one of which is his inability to think clearly and act rationally when dealing with matters that concern his mother. He lived under his father’s shadow to be sure, but so do most eldest sons of great and powerful men, and so he accepted that with equanimity. But his mother...” She shrugged. “It is difficult to explain. Perhaps it is because they are close in age, a circumstance with which you can surely sympathize. You were a young father, Mr. Strang... Roxton is closer in age to his mother than she was to his father...”
“I understand only too well, your Grace. There are occasions, more frequent now she is a young lady, when Sarah-Jane acts toward me as if I am her elder brother and she my little sister, and thus, she does not take me as seriously as she ought.”
“Precisely! You do understand,” Deborah replied with a small sigh and continued, “Mme la duchesse and Roxton are also of a similar temperament, not that he would own to it because it is not considered manly to be sentimental and sensitive, which he is where his family and those he cares about are concerned. I like it. In fact,” she said defensively, “I consider it one of his most endearing qualities!”
“And so you should, your Grace,” Jonathon replied with a small smile.
“It would be an abuse of trust to confide in you the details of a most painful episode in my husband’s youth involving his mother that caused great distress to both his parents, but suffice that what occurred in the library the other day, the unspeakable accusations he hurled at her head were such that he believes he has repeated, in a different way, the imprudence of his youth... For Frederick to bear witness to such unpleasantness... To see his father act in a most uncharacteristic manner... It has left Roxton wondering if it is he and not Maman-Duchess who needs the attentions of a physician who deals with broken minds.” Deborah put her empty porcelain cup on its saucer and handed it off to a hovering footman, and sat up straight. “Of course I told him he was talking complete nonsense and that it was overwork and the fact he worries about every little thing, even this new babe I am carrying and my eventual lying in when the babe is not due until the autumn and I have had four healthy children without any trouble at all.” She smiled and waved at Juliana when the little girl held up a fistful of bluebells. “Children are very resilient and remarkably forgiving little beings and my eldest son will recover because his father loves him dearly, as he does all his children.” She looked at Jonathon. “Roxton is an exceptionally good father, Mr. Strang, and a loving husband. We will pull through this distressing episode, as a family, I believe that unquestioningly.”
Jonathon returned her smile. “I believe you will, your Grace. The Duke is fortunate to have you but I am certain he knows that very well and often tells you so.” He handed off his teacup on its saucer and waved away the plate of cakes being offered him, gaze remaining very much on the Duchess, who had blushed at his compliment and hung her head for the briefest of moments before again meeting his gaze when he said seriously, “I appreciate your confidence. What you have just told me has decided me that my best course of action is to return your confidence with one of mine own, rather than seek out the Duke, if that is acceptable to you?”
Deborah nodded and briefly held her breath. His lop-sided, almost embarrassed grin made her heart race and yet she managed to remain composed, hands in her lap, and ask evenly, “I presume then that what you wish to tell me concerns Mme la
duchesse?” When he nodded she added, “Whatever you tell me, Mr. Strang, will remain between us two, unless you tell me otherwise.”
“The Duke will not thank me for confiding in you, particularly in your present condition,” Jonathon said seriously. “Yet, I am confident that you are made of sterner stuff than the Duke allows and will be able to deal with it in your own indomitable way, as you did the situation that presented itself in the library.”
“May we walk? I promised Gus and Louis a scamper through the woods... But if you would prefer me to remain here, on this log...”
Jonathon glanced over at the twins, who were up off the blankets and running through the bluebells, and then at the immobile footman standing by the log at the Duchess’s right shoulder, face front but Jonathon was sure, ears very much wide open. “Send that fellow with the boys to scamper in the woods, and the others, they can return to the house; one nurserymaid can keep your daughter occupied at a distance until I’m done.”
Deborah did as he commanded, for it was a command, not a suggestion, the change in him so marked that again her heart raced as to what he could possibly want to tell her. When he stood, absently pulling at a handful of wildflowers growing by the log as he did so, she looked up at him and waited and watched as he collected his thoughts, seemingly concentrating on picking the petals from the tiny flowers. Clearly confiding in her was not going to be easy for him, or was it what he wanted to tell her that was the sticking point?
She was not kept guessing long, and when Jonathon spoke, when he finally gathered the courage and the right words to disclose the true nature of Antonia’s care at the hands of the lust-driven lunatic physician Sir Titus Foley, he did so in his inimitable artless way, with no embellishments or hypotheses; his deep, naturally friendly voice stern and unemotional, which was far more effective in conveying the enormity of the unspeakable treatment meted out to her mother-in-law than had Deborah been told in a manner that was emotionally charged and verbose.
Autumn Duchess: A Georgian Historical Romance (Roxton Series) Page 29